Page 110 of An Invocation of Monsters

“When you came here, I hated you.” Willow tilted her head, looking at me up and down. “I didn’t see what made you so special to them. I did everything they asked, but they still didn’t want me. They wanted you. But I kept quiet. I kept their secrets.”

I’d woken up to a crazy world, and I wanted out.

“But then I thought…” She smiled slowly, showing all her teeth. “It wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t know. I want you to know everything. You’ll feel better if you know, too.”

“Know what?” I wondered if I’d done something wrong when I brought her back.

Maybe she’d been too far gone. This Willow was so unlike the one I’d first met…

She nodded to the book on the bed. “Read it and find out, Ellerasha.”

Maybe I was still dreaming. What the hell kind of a name was that? Was it Willow’s weird version of a nickname?

But she didn’t clarify. She just walked past me, her arms held stiffly at her sides.

I waited until the door clicked shut behind her, then I pounced on it, slamming the lock closed.

It was starting to feel like a moot point to make sense of any of this. All of these people were mad.

But the journal on my bed… it seemed to beckon me.

I really shouldn’t. Nothing good could come of this insanity.

Willow was clearly not in her right mind.

There was every chance I’d screwed up when I healed her. It wasn’t like I was used to using this power on other people; maybe I’d reconfigured her brain somehow while piecing its mush back together.

But the journal.

I took a few steps towards it, then shook my head. No. She wasn’t here for a friendly visit.

Whatever was in there, it was going to bother me. Deeply.

I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth again, scrubbing hard. Then I forced myself to dig out my flat iron and straighten my hair.

I came out and saw the journal, sitting there, waiting.

Instead, I busied myself tidying up all the torn papers. I didn’t think Deepwater would be making a comeback. It would take a lot more than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to turn this confetti into anything resembling a book again.

Kind of like Willow’s mind.

I went into my room, checked my phone for messages and found none, and scraped some mud off my boots.

Finally I could no longer stand it. I sat on the bed, picking up the journal like it was a hot coal.

It was well-worn, the binding heavily creased. I flicked the faded blue ribbon aside and cracked the cover, holding my breath as I scanned the first page.

I recognized his writing from the letters to my mother, each line perfectly spaced as I flipped the pages, reading through the journal he’d started in college.

Joseph spared no detail, filling in the gaps for my ravenous curiosity.

He’d attended Miskatonic University with an eye for a major in Occult Studies. He loved the school grounds, he hated the food, he thought Kerry in his third and fourth hour classes was a bitch.

But then I saw the name Gillian.

He was enchanted with her, this girl who sat next to him in the American History of Witchcraft course.

She had hair like a summer cloud. Eyes like autumn rain.

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